My Sister, My hero

Sandeep Medisetti
Aug 27, 2017 · 4 min read

August 8th, 1991: A baby girl was born to my parents. It was the day when I got a friend and sister for life. It was the day that divided my family a bit for next 2 years over the girl child issue. A girl child was not easily accepted in rural India during 90's3. I’m just a 1-year-old kid unaware of anything except crying, eating, sleeping (and of course pooping in diapers).

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Because of our very small age difference, we did have a special camaraderie and did all the activities together. We went to the same school, were taught by the same teachers though we are in different grades, had the same favorite cartoon show — Swat Kats (I’m T-bone and she is Razor, according to the Hindi version I’m ‘Bade Miya’ and she is ‘Chote Miya’), traveled in same bus to school, shared text books, watched WWE (I choke slammed her multiple times), pranked my parents, played cricket, bunked home tuitions (by turning off all the lights and never opening the door to the tutors) and list goes on.

My sister is an introvert and had uncanny ways of spending the childhood.

Finishing the academic work in half an hour’s time from the moment we returned home from school. She made up her mind to become a doctor at age of 6 and played only with a doctor kit and doll (my sister is the doctor and the doll is the patient every day for the next 6–8 years). Revise all that was taught in school. Practice classical dance time. Eat. Sleep.

On Sundays, her revision, classical dance and doctor role play time doubled. Everything that she did was a bit uncanny in my frame of reference because we are poles apart in our way of lives.

She was studious and used to be in the top 5 in her class while I used to spend most of my school time outside of the classroom either serving a punishment or day dreaming.

My sister-dancer version (left) and a studious version (right)

Every year at school I would strongly feel her heroic presence on two occasions- Independence day celebrations and results day at end of school year. The teachers gave up on me due to my poor dance skills and requested my sister to teach me the moves at home. On the results day, my mother used to first meet my sister’s teachers to collect the performance report. Of course, her performance report used to look great. We used to have at least 50% overlap in the teachers. When it is my turn, looking at my performance report the teachers and my mother often had a hard time believing that I and my sister shared the same lineage. However, my sister never had any doubts and she happily shared her chocolates with me :)

As she made up her mind to become a doctor, she developed a love for biology and fear towards math. She is super focused cracked the medical entrance and graduated with an M.B.B.S degree from Guntur Medical College.

After graduation, she has faced the toughest challenge in her life — cracking the PGIMER entrance. She did very bad on her first attempt she got AIR 4,000 and of course did not get any admission. Trivia — PGIMER entrance is a hyper competitive exam for the total class size (all specialties combined) of 150. PGIMER is India’s #2 best med school.

But, she hasn’t given up that easily. She took another shot at the entrance exam. She was determined, more focused and went back to her uncanny ways for the entrance prep. I was confident that she would come out with flying colors this time. Though I was confident, I anxiously waited for her results. On the results day, I got a text in the midnight at 12.30am PST — “PGI result is out, I got AIR 358. Very excited”. Yay! She made it and got admission into PGIMER. She is now pursuing her P.G in anesthesia. She is now M.Harika Bindu M.D (Anesthesia), M.B.B.S.

A proud father (left) and bother (right)

I’m super proud of my sister’s accomplishment. She is my inspiration and hero. I wish her the best to complete her post graduation at PGIMER and become a good doctor to make difference in people lives.

P.S-Whenever she is furious, she puts me up for sale.

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Sandeep Medisetti

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